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As I’ve noted in past By The Numbers posts, I pay a lot of attention to Strength ofSchedule. Mostly, I look at a little concoction of my own (or at least, I haven’tbeen able to find anyone else using it) called SoSHR – a weighted SoS based onhome vs. road records.

For the Pacers, the schedule just isn’t all that tough this season, but that’s prettymuch true for everyone in the Eastern Conference. Based on current records, theIndiana Pacers are projected to have the 4th easiest schedule this season. The onlyteams with easier schedules? Eastern Conference rivals Atlanta, Philly, and Chicago.In fact, the SoSHR is so skewed East vs. West that the Eastern Conference owns the10 easiest schedules, while the Western Conference owns the 10 toughest.

Here’s an overall look at the Pacers’ slate:

The red line represents the YTD SoSHR. The black line shows a rolling 10-gameaverage, and the blue line coming in from the top shows the track of the Pacers’winning percentage.

The takeaway from the red and black lines is that the Pacers are past the toughestpart of the schedule, from a broad perspective, though there is one more challengecoming up. When the Indy returns from the break, they will play the final gamesof their easiest 10-game stretch of the season – hosting the Warriors on Tuesday,then not playing again until Saturday in New Orleans. They’ve split the firsteight games, so the “easy 10″ didn’t help them a great deal.

Then, starting on Monday, March 5th, they play their toughest remaining 10-gamestretch of the season, with an overall SoSHR of .545. The ten games are spreadout over 18 days, but they include...CONTINUE READING AT 8p9s

Don't forget the Pacers Digest Awards - LG33 Edition.You have until Monday @ 10pm to vote forSunshiner of the Year - LIGHTENING ROUND.- - - - - - - - - - - - -Any poster who made nominations in eight or more categoriesAND votes in all award races will automatically qualify for a randomdrawing to win a gift certificate from Amazon.com

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Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

I wouldn't say with ease, if anyone has been keeping up with boxscores and looking at the Hornets, you can see a lot of their games have been close. I hope Pacers realize this isn't going to Bobcats and come out strong.

Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

I wouldn't say with ease, if anyone has been keeping up with boxscores and looking at the Hornets, you can see a lot of their games have been close. I hope Pacers realize this isn't going to Bobcats and come out strong.

If they weren't on the second night of a back to back and we weren't well rested, then yeah I would agree. But they just played a hard game against the Mavs. With how much better we are than the Hornets, we should beat them with ease.

Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

Sadly I won't be able to watch the game because tomorrow my 2nd semester starts (so obviously I can't watch something that starts at 3:00 am)...
So, Good luck Pacers, get this game because we should be able to win it, and gain additional momentum for the Bulls game

Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

Definitely top five in my book. I do think it benefited from its brevity - it didn't have a chance to get bad. Interested to see how the movie plays out.

That's a good point, a lot of shows get worse and worse as they go on... no chance to jump the shark. Now that i think about it, admittedly I thought the 3rd season wasn't quite on par with the first 2, still very good tho. I can only hope the stories are true about the movie, apparently they are also gonna do like 10 episodes before the movie, which is cool.

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Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

The Hornets will battle it out every time they are crowned the underdogs. They will lose against the bad teams cause they want to go higher in the draft than them but they will battle against the better teams because chances are that the better teams will close it out anyway. It's a smart way of tanking, actually. Look good enough by battling good opponents and outtank the teams that are close to you by losing to them.

So, we need to come out strong. They are not going to go away. We have to put them to rest from the get-go.

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Re: 3/3/2012 Game Thread #35: Pacers Vs. Hornets

Should be a tough game. NO plays us well, and they will be hungry to avenge their OT loss. But I think we will pull this one out. We had 3 days to practice, so hopefully we can show some new sets on the offensive end and continue our solid D.